"The campaign failed to recognize this threat"

A senior Democratic Party official blasts the Coakley campaign for trying to spin looming disaster in Massachusetts

Published January 19, 2010 9:20PM (EST)

A senior Democratic Party official sends over this scathing response to a memo Massachusetts Attorney General Martha Coakley's allies are circulating -- a memo that effectively tries to blame national Democrats and the White House for an election defeat that, at least until 8 p.m. Eastern, hasn't even happened yet. "National Dems failed to aid Coakley until it was too late," the memo begins. To put it mildly, the party official isn't buying the Coakley spin.

This memo is a pack full of lies and fantasies - The DNC and the DSCC did everything they were asked and have been involved in the race for several weeks not just the last one -The campaign failed to recognize this threat, failed to keep Coakley on the campaign trail, failed to create a negative narrative about Brown, failed to stay on the air in December while he was running a brilliant campaign. It's wishful thinking from a pollster, candidate and campaign team that were caught napping and are going to allow one of the worst debacle in American political history to happen on their watch that they are at the 11th hour are going to blame others. Before the DNC and DSCC got involved there was barely a single piece of paper on what the narrative is on Brown. The candidate in this race and the campaign have been involved in the worst case of political malpractice in memory and they aren't going to be able to spin themselves out of this with a memo full of lies.

 


By Mike Madden

Mike Madden is Salon's Washington correspondent. A complete listing of his articles is here. Follow him on Twitter here.

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Related Topics ------------------------------------------

2010 Elections Democratic Party Martha Coakley Scott Brown War Room White House